PearCinema
Watch a film and television collection that lives on a computer at home, from anywhere. It can be your computer or a friend's. No port forwarding, no VPN, no account and no cloud copy of your files.
On Android, get it from Zapstore today. The iPhone app is with Apple review, and Google Play is on the way. The library software is ready to run now either way, and its own dashboard plays your films in a browser.
What you need
Two things: somewhere for the films to live, and a way to watch them.
The library. Any computer that stays on and holds the films - a home server appliance, a NAS, a spare desktop. On an Umbrel it is an app you install from the PeerLoom app store, and the platform keeps it running. On Mac, Windows and Linux there is an installer that puts PearCinema in the menu bar or system tray. It reads your files where they already are, straight out of a folder or from a media server you already run such as Jellyfin or Emby, so nothing is moved, renamed or re-encoded.
Something to watch on. The library's own dashboard is a player, so any computer on the network can watch with nothing installed. There is an app for Android, an iPhone app on the way, and you can send a film to a Roku or Samsung television and drive it from your phone.
What it does that a folder of files does not
It makes your files play. Files your phone can already handle go straight through untouched. Anything it cannot, the library repackages or converts as you watch, using that machine's graphics chip, so it costs the machine very little and never changes your original file.
It knows what your films are. A video file usually carries a filename and nothing else. PearCinema works out films from shows, sorts episodes into seasons, and picks up the descriptions and posters already on your disk, so a folder becomes a real library rather than a list of filenames.
It remembers where you stopped, and follows you from your phone to your laptop and back. Everyone in the house has their own list rather than sharing yours.
It works on a plane. Download a film beforehand and it plays with everything switched off, converted in advance if your device needs that.
Sharing, and taking it back
The machine holding the films does not have to be yours. A library's owner can let a friend or a family member in, each as their own person holding their own devices, with their own place in whatever they were watching and no login to pass around. Hand out a guest pass that expires by itself, or cut somebody off the moment you want to.
Removing a device takes effect within seconds. It does not wait for the film to end, and it stops a television that device had already started. Nobody you share with ever gets a copy of a file.
PearCinema hosts nothing
It is a player for films you already have on a machine you already own. It has no catalogue of its own, offers nothing to search for or download, and provides no way to obtain a film.